New Delhi, April 9 -- At an event to celebrate George Kennan in 1994 on the eve of his 90th birthday, the diplomat credited with the strategy of containment that guided US policy towards the former Soviet Union said it had resulted in "one of the great disappointments of my life." Kennan was saddened that containment had extracted costs too high and that the US and its European allies had in effect demanded the Soviet Union's "unconditional surrender."

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